Atari, the once-massive video game console manufacturer and publisher founded in 1972, has signed over the movie adaptation rights to 10 of its properties to Universal Pictures, and a feature film based on one currently unconfirmed “Atari IP” is already in the works.
As reported by Deadline, the deal between Atari and Universal Pictures was confirmed by Atari CEO Wade Rosen. Deadline also managed to procure an exact list of the ten properties featured in the deal: Asteroids, Adventure, Berzerk, Breakout, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Missile Command, Yars’ Revenge, and, yes, even Pong. Assumedly, the 50+ demographic is in high demand these days.
The report states that Universal Pictures is already working on bringing one of these ten Atari properties to the big screen. However, exactly which property Universal plans to adapt first is currently a mystery. Whatever the Atari IP ends up being, it’ll be produced by Entertainment 360’s Guymon Casady, with a screenplay to be penned by Matt Reilly and Carl Hampe.
While Universal Pictures didn’t confirm Deadline’s report, Atari’s chairman and CEO, Wade Rosen, was more than happy to spill the beans on their upcoming collaboration: “For more than five decades, Atari has created games and worlds that have remained part of popular culture long after their original release… We are excited to work with Universal and Entertainment 360 to bring the spirit of our iconic brand and games to a new medium.”
The funny thing is, thanks to Atari’s long and highly complicated history of ownership, this opens the door to some far weirder collaborations in the future. As Atari is now owned by Atari SA, which was formerly Infogrames Games, there’s a chance we might see feature films based on properties such as RollerCoaster Tycoon, System Shock, and maybe even Bubsy.
Sure, a System Shock movie would make way more sense and even has the potential to be good, but I personally think it would be way funnier if we collectively gaslight Universal Pictures into thinking that a Bubsy movie would make morbillion dollars at the box office.
